How Kosovo Created its Own Liberal Islam

Standpoint ^ | July 2008 | MICHAEL J. TOTTEN

[forkinsocket]

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. Some are concerned about what NATO, the United Nations, and the European Union have nurtured there since the military and humanitarian intervention in 1999. James Jatras, a U.S.-based advocate for the Serbian Orthodox Community, put it bluntly last year when he said Kosovo was a “a beachhead into the rest of Europe” for “radical Muslims” and “terrorist elements.” It’s an assertion without evidence. “We’ve been here for so long,” said United States Army Sergeant Zachary Gore in Eastern Kosovo, “and not seen any evidence of it, that we’ve reached the assumption that it is not a viable threat.”

Nine in 10 of Kosovo’s citizens are ethnic Albanians, and more than 90 per cent of them are at least nominal Muslims. Most are so thoroughly modern and secularised that moderate doesn’t quite say it. The only word that can fairly describe Islam as practiced by the majority of Albanian Muslims is liberal. No nation can be entirely free of extremists, but Kosovo is one of the least religiously extreme Muslim-majority countries on Earth. Radical Islamists aren’t there in significant numbers now, and they aren’t likely to be in the future. Some places may be fertile ground for radicalism in the future, but Kosovo isn’t one of them for many of the same reasons that Christian theocracy isn’t coming to Western Europe.

I arrived here shortly after the declaration of independence, and the first thing I looked for – as always when I visit a Muslim-majority country – was the treatment and status of women.

Women who dress with their hair, ankles, and sometimes even faces showing in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan are often beaten or worse.

In Kosovo, by contrast, almost all women, even in small villages, dress like women in the rest of Europe. Streets, cafés, restaurants, and bars are not all-male affairs as they are in much of the Islamic world, where women spend almost all their lives behind walls. If it weren’t for the occasional mosque minaret on the skyline, there is little visible evidence that Kosovo is a Muslim-majority country at all. Kosovo looks, feels, and is European.

A small number of well-heeled Islamic extremists from the Gulf states have moved into Kosovo to rebuild damaged mosques and transform liberal Balkan Islam into the more severe version found in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. They’ve had a small amount of success with a similar project in nearby Bosnia, but they’re meeting stiffer resistance from Kosovo’s religious community as well as from secular citizens.

“We are working very hard to stop these kinds of movements,” said Professor Xhabir Hamiti, of the Islamic studies department at the University of Pristina. “These kinds of movements are dangerous for all nations, for all faiths, for all religions. We are Muslims, but we think the European way. I am a Muslim, I am a scholar, I know how to deal with Islam in my country. There is no need for Arabs to come here. I have no need for their suggestions, no need for their explanations. We created our Islam ourselves here, and we can continue our Islam with our own minds.”

It would be wrong to suggest Kosovo has no Islamists at all, but in the last election in late 2007, the country’s single Islamic party gained only 1.7 per cent of the vote. Kosovo is not the Middle East, and Albanians are not Arabs. The majority converted to Islam relatively recently under Turkish Ottoman rule, and Albanian culture was first solidly Christian. “We Albanians,” Dom Lush Gjergji recently wrote, “descendants of the Illyrians, are Christians from the time of the Apostles… Without Christianity there would be no Albanian people, language, culture, or traditions… Albanians consider Christianity their patrimony, their spiritual and cultural inheritance.” Gjergji is a Catholic priest, but I heard similar comments from many who self-identify as Muslims. “Albanian people are not very religious,” said Agron Rezniqi, of the Friendship Association between Kosovo and Israel “We come from Catholicism, and for that, we are not such strong Muslims.”

Perhaps the best evidence available that Albanian Muslims, in both Kosovo and Albania proper, differ radically from their Arab world counterparts is their relationship with Jews and with Israel. Jews in Albania had an almost 100 per cent survival rate during the Nazi occupation. The country was known as a safe haven where Jews could find protection under the noses of the German authorities. According to Dan Michman, chief historian at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, there were three times as many Jews in Albania at the end of the Second World War as there were at the beginning.

Both Albania and Kosovo have excellent relations with Israel, and Israelis are more than welcome to travel and even live among Albanians. An Israeli from Tel Aviv named Shachar Caspi opened a bakery and a bistro bar in Pristina. “Nobody has given me any problems or been against Israel,” he told me. “[Kosovars] had good relations with Jewish people even back in the old days. And nobody here is radical. On the contrary, people are very warm, they are very nice, they have taken Islam to a beautiful place, not to a violent place. When they hear I am Israeli, the way they react, they react very warmly.”

Much of the angst about Kosovo’s alleged radicalism centres on the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an organisation that no longer even exists.

It was a short-lived guerrilla movement that rose up against Slobodan Milosevic’s régime, first to fight for independence from an apartheid-like system, and later as a defence against mass murder and ethnic-cleansing. The KLA was always thoroughly secular and in no way resembled a Balkan Hamas or Hezbollah.

Its leaders also distinguished themselves from their Bosnian counterparts when they flatly refused assistance from Arabic mujahideen who wanted to fight a holy war there against Serbs. Albanians don’t fight religious wars, not against themselves, and not against others.

There has been no fighting or even tension between Muslim and Christian Albanians, only between Serbs and Albanians.

The danger in Kosovo isn’t that international peace keepers are nurturing a jihad state. Rather, a premature withdrawal may lead to a resumption of the fighting between Serbs and Albanians that they moved in to stop in the first place.

[Cronos]

The Churches were demolished because they were Serbian churches

Sigh, Dio's point is that this was an ethnic fight. Both sides committed horrible atrocities, yes.

[Cronos]

Now we get to the cold heart of the matter...Nazis as “liberators”...makes me sick to even repeat this trash.

COme on, you're not even reading the sentence -- he said "did SEEM as liberators" -- remember that the Ukrainians thought the Germans were liberating them from the Soviets -- that turned out to be wrong. Ditto for the Czechs who thought the Russians were liberating them from the Nazis.

[Cronos]

Maybe in Asia 8000, on Kosovo 80.

That is patently false. If the Albanians have been here only since 1920, where did they come from???

There is also historical evidence of Skanderbeg fighting the Turks in the 1400s. There is talk of Albanians from earlier than that. I don't buy Sonny's bit about the Albanians being from 6000 BC either. Albanians seem related to the Thraco-Dacians (ancestors of present day Bulgars and Romanians) and speak an Indo-European language like the Slavs so they only would have come in about 1500 to 2000 BC. Slavs did come later from Central Asia, but BOTH should live in Kosovo

[Cronos]

Albanians are basically into gangsterism just like Slick KKKlinton.

And Gypsies are basically thieves, right?

[Cronos]

So, how much do you get for one white girl

That degenerates the argument. Even if the Albanians do such despicable things, they (Albanians) are also "white" -- if by "white" you mean Caucasian. Why, even Jews and Arabs and Persians and Indians are Caucasians, so you call them "white"?

[Cronos]

So, how much do you get for one white girl

That degenerates the argument. Even if the Albanians do such despicable things, they (Albanians) are also "white" -- if by "white" you mean Caucasian. Why, even Jews and Arabs and Persians and Indians are Caucasians, so you call them "white"?

And, by your sentence, do you think it better to sell one black girl rather than one white one?

A despicable question, right? But no despicable than the one you asked, so let's not ask such points not germane to the post topic

[Cronos]

Russia is part of Eurabia. Russia is more muslim than France. Russia has millions of muslims citizens and even has Chechen terrorists in the Russian army occupying the territory of the Christian Georgians. Russia builds jihadist muslim Iran nuclear reactors while at the same time Russia persecutes and terrorizes their Christian neighbors just like in Soviet times. Russia is Islam's best friend. Russia is the source of the Islamic threat and the enemy of all humanity

Now YOU are flying off the handle, TJ --> Russia does have 20% Muslims, yes, but it is resolutely Christian and was responsible for Christianities release from Moo control. They could have even taken back Constantinople if it wasn't for the English and French.

The Russians are acting silly now with Iran -- in the 1700s and 1800s, the Russians were in fact about to conquer Iran and arming a neighbor does NOT make much sense.

Putin should get some sense and unite with the US and EU and China and India against the slammic world.

[Bokababe]

"The Serbs named the place and virtually all the cities in it because it was and is theirs. “Kosova” is just an Albanian bastardization of the Serbian name “Kosovo” that has no meaning in the Albanian language. Who owned “Kosovo” in the Stone Age is irrelevant"

"That is not a valid argument for saying that Kosovo should be 100% Serb and others should be driven out. The English named most of the East Coast of the Americas and virtually all the citis in it because it was theirs -- should the north-east be handed back to ole blighty?"

Who ever said that "Kosovo should be 100% Serbian and all others should be driven out"? Certainly not me! What I said above was in response to the continual Albanian argument that "Kosovo has always been Albanian and Serbia seized it". That thinking is nonsense. Kosovo was founded as a Serbian territory with a Serbian name and Serbian city names.

"Similary, Kosovo should be a joint Serb-Albanian statelet as genocide (whether committed by either side) is NOT an option and should not be tolerated."

The Albanians in Kosovo were offered nearly complete autonomy within Serbia -- they rejected it because we (the US) were telling them to reject it. The reason? Camp Bondsteel, which was built in Kosovo within a year of the NATO Bombing and was on the drawing board long before that. In short, we had built the second largest US military base in Europe on Serbia's land without Serbia' permission, so we had to transfer that land to the Albanians who had already agreed to the base in return for us championing their cause. This was a dirty, ugly political deal that broke international law and, thanks to our insane State Department, will continue to cost us politically for decades to come.

[Cronos]

The Albanians need to get over their idea of a “Greater Albania”, just like the Serbs need to get over THEIR idea of a “Greater Serbia”. An ethnically pure state is not feasible or possible in the Balkans. They need to get along. The distaste Serbs feel for Albanians is like their distaste for Roma/Gypsies — it is ethnic, not religious.

[Cronos]

You guys should be ashamed. There ARE Albanian Christians — do you consider THEM cockroaches? Do you consider Christian gypsies as cockroaches? I would have agreed with you on the philosophy of eye-Slam, but it’s apparent that the Albanians are hardly slamic and it’s even more apparent that your hatred is an ethnic hatred.

[getoffmylawn]

You’re right. I probably should have included him as an example in my post :-)

[Cronos]

Whenever you see a nation or race or whatever of people who average ten or fifteen kids per family, you're very definitely not talking about work or doing anything prouctive or useful or anything like that, all you're really talking about is cannon fodder and breeding for war.

Have you got facts to back up your claim? I couldn't find any birth-rate figures for Kosovar Albanians, but the annual growth rate for Albania proper is 2.03% -- hardly the incorrect, false figures of 10 ~ 15 you gave. In fact, 2.03 is less than the replacement rate of 2.1. Yes, Serbia has a less healthy fertility rate of 1.69 children born/woman, but the difference is hardly that large to throw bricks at someone else's glass house.

[Cronos]

Do you guys even hear yourselves? Screaming ethnic genocide at each other. I’m beginning to find both camps repulsive. Do you seriously think you can ethnically “cleanse” Kosovo to make it “pure” Albanian or “pure” Serb? No. In fact, with the centuries of living right next to each other, I’d bet that you, Sonny, have some Serb blood and you, Marmema (if you’re a Serb) have Albanian blood. Stretching back 3000 to 4000 years, both Albanians and Slavs come from the same Indo-European root, so sheesh.

[Cronos]

Once and for all ALBANIANS ARE NOT DESCENDANTS OF ILLIRYANS, WHO DISSAPEARED THROUGH WARS WITH ROMANS AND LATER PEOPLES-MOVING DURING MIGRATIONS

As an impartial observer who actually reads other sources, I can say you are WRONG. The Albanians are mostly descendents of Illyrian-Thracian-Dacians. They may have some Roman and Greek and Slavic blood, but not completely any of those. The majority WILL be Illyrian-Thracian.

There`s no nation in Europe who can say to be pure in race or keep same genetic, cultural, linguistic caracteristics like 2-3000 years ago.

Quite right -- that's why Slavic blood is mixed with Greek, Albanian, Turkic (including Huns, Avars and Bulgars not to mention Seljuk) blood.

Italians are pretty much direct descendents of old Romans. Northern Italians may have Lombardy and Celt blood just like Southern Italians will have Greek, Carthagianian (Canaanite) and Arab blood.

[Cronos]

READ the article, it says “A vast majority come from the Jevgjit community, a group of some 300,000 Albanian-speaking Gypsies, or Roma, who have fared even more poorly than most. “ — and Gypsies have been mistreated for centuries

[Cronos]

Albanians are notorious for historical revisionism, they have no archaeological proof of their supposed linkage to the Illyrians but think that manufacturing half witted theories without any factual substantiations could pass for actual history.

So, who do you say they are descended from? So, who do you say Skanderbeg was? And the Illyrians and Dalmatians who were there in the 9th,10th,11th, 12th, 13th century?

Your theory of Albanians appearing out of thin air is silly

[Cronos]

And Alexander is Illyrian = Albanian. Now this is sick.

Let's see the FACTS. The Macedonians during Alexander's time were not considered Greeks. They didn't speak the Hellenic language, they didn't have the Greek culture and they lived in kingdoms not city-republics like the Greeks. They had a Greek ruling class like the Egyptians under the Ptolemies a century later. The Macedonian COMMONERS were pretty definitely related to Thracians-Dacians-Illyrians. Perhaps even the Dorian Greeks were originally of the T-D-I ethnic sub-group of the Aryans before they invaded the Pelopponese in the 1200s BC -- in any case, both the T-D-I language and classic Greek are sister Aryan languages.

Ok, back to our theme: the people were T-D-I, but were the ruling class? Most likely no, I'd say, taking the example of the Ptolemies, the ruling caste would have married only amongst themselves or brought brides from the south. BUT, there is a good chance they would have some native blood -- to cement alliances so to speak -- just like how Alexander would marry an Afghan (well Sogdian, nowadays Tajik) beauty: Roshanah.

[Cronos]

SSG All I know is that Albanians have been in the Balkans since history began.
FL Yes, that is "all you know" and it's wrong just like everything else that you post, Bonly boy

Sheesh, at least give a refutation, prove him wrong. I've seen no evidence to say Albanians aren't mostly descendents of the Illyrians. Yes, they'll have Slavic blood, but even the Greeks have Slavic blood. the DNA proof in SSG's post shows that you both are pretty much the same genetically.

[Cronos]

You still haven't answered my question Blatta Shqipus, how much does one fetch for a white girl these days?

Really monty -- why do you want to support such a business? If you don't get a white girl, would a black or yellow one do? That line of statements is disgusting.

Or here is another question, what archeological evidence is there to support this Illyrian lineage hmmm Blatta

Come on -- the peoples of that land are still more or less there. Just like Thracians who are still amongst the population of Bulgaria, just like Dacians are the modern-day Romanians. Yes, those people still are there. They will have blood and culture from later immigrants, but they will still be there. In fact, to take another example -- people now find that modern day Anglo-Saxons still have a lot of Celtic blood, so no invader wipes out the previous peoples completely

Even the Turks are hardly Turkomen, barely 10 to 15% of their blood comes from Central Asia, the rest is Greek, Armenian, Lydian, Hittite, Georgian, etc. Ditto for the Azerbaijanis -- they speak a Turkic language but they are Irani by blood -- Azerbaijan in fact was where Zoroaster preached.

[Cronos]

And you know Serbs are even more old than Albanians in Balkans

you want to hear the scary truth? You Albanians, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians etc. are all related and probably a lot more than you know or like. Yes, it's probably true that what we now call Serbs or Albanians are actually cultures put on top of a common Thracian-Illyrian-Dacian bloc along with blood from Greeks, Romans, Germanics, Slavs, Celts, Turkics, Magyars, etc. etc.